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ateway to:
S
, tamina
mother and black stepdad in a black communi
ty in Los Angeles. 1 grew up poor, struggled to
attain working-class status, and now am raising
two daughters, one 1 would identify as working-
class and the other as middle-class. I live in a
middle-class area of Oregon City. My neighbors
and parents of my daughters friends are middle-
class, and without exception white. 1 don t fit in
here. Before 1 came out, 1 tried to fit in with the
other parents, but I never did. Now I wonder
why 1 ever wanted to. My lover is white upper-
middle-class, and so are her children. We both
have so much baggage about money, race and
class.
In the queer community, 1 have been sur
prised to find the same race and class issues. It
hurts at a deeper level to be dis’d (disrespected,
disregarded) in this community. It feels like
coming home to rejection. What I struggle with
is how to articulate and help others understand
without blaming or shaming them. 1 believe the
burden is on both of us to educate ourselves.
I have met you and I do know your good
intentions. I’ve heard you casually rebuke
another dyke about the class issue of owning a
boat. 1 think she was commenting about being
the only dyke she knew with a boat, or some
thing. It is so powerful to hear you and others
call people on their classism. I’ve heard Erica
[Silver] from Bradley-Angle House call someone
on their racism and Bonnie Tinker [of Love
Makes a Family] speak eloquently many times
on these and other divisive issues. I am finding
my own voice to speak up sometimes, and feel
supported by those in our community who also
speak.
good for one burst blood vessel. But this year’s
“conform if you want to get rich and famous”
editorial— no doubt pleasing to those at HRC
and Log Cabin Republicans, I am sure—clearly
misses out on why we are who we are and that
being who we are should not mean we suffer
economic consequences.
You can call it being PC— George Will and
Pat Buchanan would love you if you’d sprinkle
that label liberally in all your editorials—but
giving into the bully mentality that attacks the
prejudice in our society or at least questions its
worth is not socially undesirable. And simply
because you have achieved your own notion of
a queer life doesn’t mean you have figured it out
for the rest of us.
Frankly, being contrary and different is one
fairly common characteristic of .being queer.
Isn’t the ultimate goal achieving some sort of
society that uses character and the quality of
one’s contribution as a measure of success and
not whether you wear the appropriate clothes
and cut of hair? W on’t those who want to deny
us equal treatment always find some superficial
reason to justify denying us those rights they
take for granted? If we were only butch enough,
or femme enough, we’d get those domestic part
nership rights...somehow that doesn’t wash
with me.
Finally, can you teach your writers to refer to
our lives as lives and not lifestyles? I stopped
having a lifestyle when my mother stopped
shopping for Garanimals for me at Sears in
1964- We live lives, and the sooner we stop
referring to our lives as lifestyles the sooner we
can bury the anti-queer rhetoric that our lives
are some sort of choice.
E llie P ule
Oregon City
B ob D oyle
San Francisco
To the E ditor :
people received utility assistance, preventing power from being sbut off. 1,861
After reading your commentary, “2, 4, 6,
8 ...We Refuse to Assimilate” [June 2], I have
concluded that what Portland needs, desperate
ly, is a gay newspaper. The attitudes and opin
ions you express are the most obnoxious I have
ever read in a queer newspaper anywhere in the
United States.
people received personal bygiene items (those wbicb cannot be purchased
C urtis B alls
with food stamps).
Portland
Your donations and purchases at work in '99:
586 people received bus tickets for day labor or medical appointments. 468
received assistance obtaining state identification, a prerequisite for work. 303
391 people received family counseling. 365 people
received rent assistance. 180 people were provided emergency dental work.
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The article “Gaining Momentum” in the
June 16 issue provided an incorrect phone num
ber for the Hambleton Project. The correct
number is (503) 642-1007. Just Out regrets the
error.
ju s t out welcomes
To the E ditor :
This last week of visiting with friends gave
me a chance to read your last two issues of Just
Out. Seems like so little changes here in Ore
gon: The OCA has another initiative, and Just
Out still struggles to understand diversity or
even what it is to be queer.
1 am glad I wasn’t here last year for your
"dress properly” lecture—that would have been
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