What is the role of activism?

These are from my notes - so don't take it as the Gospel. Just view it as a "snapshot".

Side note: My grandmother of 83 was talking with me on our last visit about shorthand. She was a secretary for Hamilton Standard for ages and was showing me how to take shorthand. It could have been Hindi from my perspective. But it definitely has its benefits and has been largely lost with the advent of new technology. But I could have used it at the State of the Movement event to give a more accurate transcription of the panelists' statements.

Sean Bugg (looking a cross between traditional and festive with tan slacks and a navy blazer with a light lime green tie that gave the look some "tension" - it was a Southern frat boy look who uses the tie as a playful experiment - kudos from this homo) asked the panel about the role of new media (read: blogs) in the spirit of ACT UP and Queer Nation.

There was a number of responses:

Pam Spaulding offered some thoughts: New media gives those in the community a voice about which a collective coalition can form. New media gives a neccesary check on how to confront power structures that "filter" the message into something more palatable. (Pam - please correct me if this summary is a bit off from your intention).

Herdon Davis (National Black Justice Coalition): Technology is a means to have access to the people. He spoke later, at some length, about his organization's role in fostering interactions between the gay community and the black church, and that Pam Spaulding would be blogging live from an event in March to highlight the particular discussions of black gays, vis a vis, the church.

Joe Solmonese: (I have noted that he was picking mindlessly at the microphone stand) New media reflects broader societal movements. Blogs are a means to highlight events that can, in turn, percolate into the broader media. Unfortunately (in his view) blogs offer a means of the angry people to have a voice. This voice can be fragmentary and distracting to the larger issues of the day (he gave an example about how a blogger said something that was inaccurate and he had to put out a fire that was unneccesary, and he could have been using his time more effectively). However, politically saavy, Joe wants to be respectful of the differences that the blogosphere has with the establishment. (Joe - please correct me if I am wrong and I will post your response).

Dixon Osbourne (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network -SLDN): Blogs have permeated the traditional media. An example: CNN has a blog. The World Wide Web (www...) is a powerful force to touch the masses.

Mara Keisling (National Center for Transgender Equality): There has been a tentative response in the LBGT community to embracing the web (effectively the blogosphere). The web offers a spectrum of voices, and the key is balance. She offered her own experience as an example - when reading her teaching evaluations, she was mentored to throw out the absolute best and absolute worst and read the remainder to get an idea of her performance. She suggested that blogs, or how blogs should be weighed, ought to be analogous. Overall, her view was that the distributed nature of the web should be harnessed by the LBGT community as a tool for exchange and discovery. (Ed note: Three snaps for that position).

Chris Barron (Log Cabin Republicans): Blogs are a great tool to encourage participation. They represent a voice that, for those who are disenfranchised, can use to protest and/or clarify. (Ed note: When was the last time a Republican talked about the disenfranchised? I hold this as a nice counterpoint that the queers are solely beholden to the Democrats).

I really liked this question (for obviously selfish reasons) by Sean Bugg. It gets to the heart of the issue of how activists must compromise with those who are working within the system. Larry Kramer, a pivotal figure in ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and the earlier iteration of the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), is one of my idols. Contrarian and fiesty, Larry has offered up the best and worst of gay life for consideration. ACT UP, unlike many other gay inititatives, has permeated the straight world. Cancer patients, who might be hopeless, use the results of this movement to force the FDA to grant access to novel therapies (recently this has gotten alot of new press). Similarly, others, having illnesses that are on the fringe, benefit from an uncoupling of the FDA oversight of review from utilization. This is not to discount the oversight of the FDA, rather it is to realize that those who will die or suffer should be free to offer themselves as guinea pigs for novel therapies. To those who are dying, what do they have to lose?

Having had a partner (previous to Bubba) with AIDS, I went to every doctor's visit with him, forcing better care for him using my knowledge of molecular biology and the literature, seeing him through a four week hospital stay with tuberculosis and two T cells, endless numbers of small illnesses that came and went and prevented us from being a "normal" couple because he was well one day and sick the next, taking on a two year-long part time job in grad school to help him pay for his meds and care, doing an HIV vaccine trial through UC Davis as a testiment to his struggle, and ultimately having to let go of him. This has given me a prism to value Larry Kramer, and I do value him. I only hope he will stay with us long enough that I can stop and say my thanks in person. I also thank Sean Bugg for bringing this particular question up. I had a personal interest in what the panel had to say because many of us, and I am but one, have had to make terrible sacrifices because of this disease. I don't regret what I have done - but when I compare my own experience with others in grad school - I can't say that my experience with an HIV/AIDS partner factors into the equation. I set my life back years and I took on debt for this - and I cannot put it on a resume. Larry Kramer, and those who did the direct action for ACT UP, can put a value on that. The broader majority, oblivious to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, might not attribute a value to it.

I can only say that I thought, among some other short-comings, that HIV/AIDS got a short-shrift in this presentation. I thank Sean for trying to incorporate the gay activist tradition into the discussion. Thanks Sean. Something as small as a question means the world to some of us.