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2. Beyond Queer Nationalism: Changing Strategies for Changing Times
- University of Wisconsin Press
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52 k 2 Be yond Queer Na tion al ism Chang ing Strat e gies for Chang ing Times The mis sion of the Point Foun da tion is to pro vide schol ar ships for LGBT col lege and grad u ate stu dents who not only are doing well in school but also show a com mit ment to com mu nity in volve ment and to goals of so cial jus tice and so cial change. In 2008 I was in vited to be one of the ple nary speak ers at its an nual con fer ence, which brings to gether all its schol ar ship re cip ients. Be cause it was the for ti eth an ni ver sary of 1968, a year of tre men dous up hea val in the United States and around the globe, and be cause the media were giv ing so much at ten tion to events of that year, I de cided to frame my re marks around a contrast between then and now. How had change been achieved, I asked, and are the strat e gies and mind sets of the past still ap pro pri ate today? k I make my liv ing stud y ing and teach ing his tory. I do it be cause I love his tory. I can’t stop my self from think ing like a his to rian. What I mean by this is that I find my self fre quently draw ing com par i sons in my head between past and present, between then and now. I think about the pas sage of time, about what has changed and what hasn’t. This is a good time to be a his to rian. We are liv ing at a mo ment when it is hard not to be aware of his tory and his tor i cal change. We have just lived through a pres i den tial pri mary sea son un like any other in American Beyond Queer Nationalism 53 his tory. The final two can di dates stand ing for the nom i na tion of a major po lit i cal party were an African American man and a white woman. If you have any sense of his tory, you can not help being stunned and awed by such an out come. We’re also liv ing through the for ti eth an ni ver sary of one of the most tu mul tu ous years in US his tory. Events of great mag ni tude are being re mem bered in the press al most con stantly. Nine teen sixty-eight was a year when the war in South east Asia fi nally took the turn that led the United States even tu ally to dis en gage from a deeply un pop u lar con flict. Nine teen sixty-eight was a year when a president’s pop u lar ity sank so low that he was re pu di ated by his own party and did not even try to run for re elec tion. It was a year when dis or der and chaos, pro tests and re bel lions, swept across the United States. Two char is matic pub lic fig ures, Mar tin Lu ther King Jr. and Rob ert F. Ken nedy, died by as sas si na tion. Riots and re bel lions tore cit ies and col lege cam puses apart. The world watched on tele vi sion as po lice in Chi cago went ber serk and at tacked dem on stra tors, jour nal ists, and un sus pect ing cit i zens dur ing the Dem o cratic Party’s na tional con ven tion. Rad i cal fem i nists pro tested out side the Miss Amer ica pa geant in At lan tic City, and women’s lib er a tion consciousness-raising groups were spring ing up all over the coun try faster than one could count them. Let’s use that year, 1968, as a meas ur ing point of change for LGBT peo ple over the past four decades: • In 1968 forty-nine out of fifty states had sod omy laws. The govern ment crim i nal ized homo sex ual be hav ior, even in pri vate between con sent ing adults. Today there are no sod omy laws; the Su preme Court de clared...