Lavender itayahip/Page 16/Hay 10, 1977

Gay LIB, Black LIB, 2016ENPORALLIEST

by Patrick Hillar

The relationships between the vari ous liberation groups in America are complex often seemingly hostile and antagonistic. Ultimately, as has been pointed out, we are all working for the same thing: human liberation. When Blacka finally achieve liberation, then whiten vill also be frend of the air myths about Blacka; when women 1nally achieve liberation, men will be freed of having to live up to their tals concepts of manculinity; when gay people achieve liberation, nongaya will be freed of their rigid confinement to false sex roles. Why, then, does it often seem as if ve ara pulling against Instead of with one another? There are unfortunately too many gays whose attitudes represent the worst sort of racias and anxIam; there is Stokely Carmichael's well-known orack that the "only posi tion for a woman in the movement is prone"; until lluey Newton's favorable statement on gay liberation, some of the Cavorite Inaults used by the Black Panthers were "quear" and "faggot": the women's movement has often had trouble relating to leabian groups; and many gay and non-gay women still react with hostility to man in drag and to "effeminate" gay males. All of this raises the question: Are Blacks, ays, and women enemies or allfes

It is true enough that gay, Black, and women's liberation can only be achloved when the oppressed fight their own oppression. Gaya cannot achieve liberation for Blacks, nor can Blacks

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Achieva liberation for woman, and groups must work for their own liberation. nur!... that does not justity one opprasand group being Indi farant to another group's oppression or avan actively participating in that oppression.

The explanation for this ooosstons) antagoniam batween the various liberatlon groups goes to the very root of the cause of the oppression of all Blacks, women, and gays. An underat anding of this root cause may help u fight our own anlam and raclam It may also help us understand though not approve angles or racine when vs encounter It In women, Blasks, or gaya. Although the speelfle nature of oppre alon for Blacks, gays, and women differs, the general purpose of that opprannion is the name to keep the minority group in an Interior position.

The specific nature of women's op pression stems from the view of women a Impersonal an objects. They hav been vlowed as Instruments for sale pleasure. Reaction against this has bean predictably strong; It often con slate of an understandable suspicion of open and expressed sexuality. This confusion between saxlam and anxuality, of course, is not true of all or even most women.

The specific nature of gay oppranalon, on the other hand, especially gay male oppression, has been society's refusal to allow them to express their sexuality openly. Gay liberation, therefore, is a one of its als the freedom for gay people to be open about their sexuality. In any ay, this reaction goen beyond open expreasion of sexuality to a sexiat attitude.

Black oppresulon, as regards sezuality, has been completely the opposite of that faced by women and gays. Black women, like white women, have been treated as sex objects by white

les. But Black women have not been forced into the corresponding "helpleon" female role of white women; indead, Black woman have been forced into just the opposite role -that of being the strong "head of the family." At the same time that Black men have been viewed as sexually superior athlates, they have been denied the opportunity to participate in supporting and working for their families, Black liberation, at least in part, thus addresses itself to trying to redress this specific form of oppression,

It can be aday that !! ***,

bat apscitis oppressions, the under lying similarity of rely opprastos, they will view sach other's struggles an, # beat, Irrelevant in the com Black man, In that taupt to cal full participation in their family on Its may act with hostility to both gays and woman'a liberation, both of which downgrade the Importance of the nuclear family unit; woman, In rad tion against their exploitation ** ** objote, may rest with scarcely so

lad distaste for the open and freely expressed anuality of BAYA Are in turn, only resting agains their pottie forma of oppression.

This is exactly what auoiety's Yo SE SLEVELuce wanta! This is the a tabllament's oldest anti-volution Ary and counter-revolutionary tricks Divide and conquer. The Kan likes nothing better than to w jacks, Kaya and we fighting awing the aly, Instead of fighting sociary's rasion and zien. This is not to my that slow and racion in the varios liberation groups should not be ort

fized and combetted. But we wust not lose sight of the main enemy. anaver the queation asked at the beginning of this articles Gaya, Blaska, and women are not anentes, but alifan But, then, you all knee that all along, didn't you?

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