Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 4:48:00 PM EDT
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The two year anniversary of the 2007 try at ENDA has just recently passed, which means that for two years everyone's hated the HRC. (Well, some of us hated the direction it was going to some time before that, too...)
By "everyone hates the HRC", I mean more specifically that most queer and/or trans advocates have been unhappy with the HRC's position on discluding gender identity in the 2007 draft of ENDA (a decision made by Barney Frank, and supported by HRC), and separating and dividing our community even wider than it already was.
HRC defended themselves as saying:
“Our community can work with the people who want to help us, or we can walk out on them. In a community facing such fierce opposition from the outside, it is disheartening to see blame and anger hurled at the people on our own side. It’s the policy of HRC that the organization will only support an inclusive ENDA. In 2007 House leadership informed us that there were insufficient votes to pass an inclusive bill, so they decided to vote on a sexual orientation only bill. We made a one time exception to our policy in 2007 because we strongly believed that supporting this vote would do more to advance inclusive legislation. We will not support such a strategy again. We look forward to Congress sending President Obama a fully inclusive ENDA for his signature."
What Joe Solmonese, and the rest of the HRC fail to understand is that one time is one time too many. But also that the exclusive ENDA is only a fraction of the queers and allied community's anger towards them.
For me, it's more about this...
... and this...
.... and, well, this...
... and the fact that when you go to http://www.hrc.org/ , you can explore an entire store worth of HRC logo'd paraphernalia. To me, this is far too representative of a large organization taking a stereotype of their community (in this case, consumerism) and making use of it for their own advantage.
The infamous yellow equal sign on the navy blue background has gone from being a symbol of equality to a a label, not unlike those you see adorning designer clothing to show the world exactly where it came from.
My problem with HRC stems from its transformation from a change-making queer rights non-profit, to a money-making queer-using corporation. HRC is the only organization that has stores in various cities across the country where you specifically purchase clothings and accessories. Even worse, if you interviewed 100 people wearing HRC clothing, or with HRC keychains, or an HRC sticker on their car, chances are high that very few of them, if any, could name 3 things the organization has done in the last year.
On another note, try to find a picture of a persyn of color on the HRC's website that isn't Barack Obama, and I will give you a dollar.
Thoughts?
The infamous yellow equal sign on the navy blue background has gone from being a symbol of equality to a a label, not unlike those you see adorning designer clothing to show the world exactly where it came from.
My problem with HRC stems from its transformation from a change-making queer rights non-profit, to a money-making queer-using corporation. HRC is the only organization that has stores in various cities across the country where you specifically purchase clothings and accessories. Even worse, if you interviewed 100 people wearing HRC clothing, or with HRC keychains, or an HRC sticker on their car, chances are high that very few of them, if any, could name 3 things the organization has done in the last year.
On another note, try to find a picture of a persyn of color on the HRC's website that isn't Barack Obama, and I will give you a dollar.
Thoughts?
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I don't think I can say that at this point I dislike the HRC, but I'm coming to better understand your point about not liking them.