On January 5, 2017, the QSA club held their annual assembly. This year the focus was on the intersection between race and sexuality. “As a club that is predominately white,” said senior and QSA club leader Noah Parnes, “we wanted to address our own lack of racial diversity and recognize what we need to do to change.” The QSA invited Gabe Gonzalez, a correspondent at mic.com, to speak at the assembly because of his satirical work highlighting the importance of including race in conversations about sexual orientation. “We watched some of his videos with mic.com about racism and sexism in the queer community and thought he had a really unique (and comedic) perspective to offer to the assembly,” Noah remarked.
Gonzalez talked about growing up in a community where there was no discussion about being gay, and showed video clips outlining the struggles associated with being both latino and gay. Gabe went to an Episcopal high school, and spoke about experiencing prejudice from teachers who invalidated his sexuality. He also showed a video clip from YouTuber Franchesca Ramsey outlining the five steps to being an ally. Step 1: Understand your privilege. Step 2: Listen and do your homework. Step 3: Speak up and not over. Support the people you are fighting for without taking up their space. Step 4: You’ll make mistakes, so apologize. Step 5: Ally is a verb. Being an ally requires action. Gabe turned to humor in order to cope with his environment and to transcend the labels given to him.
Gonzalez then turned the discussion to the election, asking difficult questions of our current political climate. He can’t understand why a gay person would vote for Donald Trump. Wealthy impressionist white gays are following the Donald Trump crowd without consideration of the experiences of their black counterparts. He talked about how there is still perversive racism, even in the gay community, and it became very apparent in the messages that people carried during Trump’s rallies. Gonzalez lamented the diminishing number of women of color fighting for equal rights. He also lamented the maltreatment of queer, black individuals by police. Furthermore, he demanded to know why tax dollars are paying for a police force that isn’t representing the whole community. Gayism is not always obvious in politics. Gonzalez wants everyone to step it up and fix what happened in 2016.
“I think the assembly went well,” said Saoirse MaherGreene (VI). “Gabe Gonzalez did an excellent job, and I think that his roundtable afterwards helped students understand more deeply the topics he introduced in the assembly. I think the lack of diversity in the queer community at Fieldston is an overlooked issue, and I appreciate that the QSA has begun their work to address this problem.”
“I learned a lot more about the Stonewall Riots, and how those were based in the trans community and spearheaded by people of color. I’ve never learned about that in school so it was pretty eye-opening,” remarked Rachel Florman, also a senior. “I loved that I walked away feeling like I’d just left a really good class discussion.”
The final speaker was Sherry Watson-Wijen. Sherry Watson and the other speakers also spoke on behalf of the club and gave powerful testimony. When asking Noah Parnes how he thinks the club will continue, he said, “I want to continue to work for more diversity in every way possible, making a safe environment for everyone, and trying to get other perspectives to come together.” Parnes believes you need lots of voices to make a difference.
Since hosting this event, the QSA club hopes more people will join and participate in the meetings. Having more members in a queer/straight alliance would be the optimal goal to get the word out. The more voices that belong, the better the club can serve the community.
