Inequality is Gay

Be warned that slurs will show up in this article, so the easily offended are invited to turn away now.

Inequality is gay; inequality is lesbian; inequality is Latino; inequality is immigrant; inequality is rich;  inequality is poor; inequality is white; inequality is still black.

I toured the National Civil Rights Museum last week. The Museum is housed in the converted Lorraine Motel, the site of the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. It is, quite simply, overwhelming. Gathered in this place are fragments of a story born of so much misunderstanding, prejudice, hatred, violence, disrespect, and fear, yet it is at the same time the greatest collection of hope, kindness, understanding, respect and acceptance that has ever been assembled.

I can only describe the feeling of walking through the exhibits as having one’s head forced into a bucket of cold water – your eyes widen the same way, you suddenly lose all air in your lungs. I passed posters and pamphlets detailing the legal, moral, and social justifications for the subjugation and inequality of a group of human beings. I watched interviews of white Americans of all ages and backgrounds justifying the oppression of that same group of human beings. A visceral moral panic numbed my body and wracked my mind, but I looked around, realized where I was and thought how far we’ve come in today’s modern, post-racial, black-president America.

But then I started playing a little word game in my head: I replaced every instance of the word “nigger” I saw with “faggot”. I replaced “Negro” with “illegal”. “Coon” with “homo”.   And how far have we come?

Some more questions: Is there an element of racism in the blocking of the Dream Act and general handling of the undocumented immigrant issue? Does the city of Memphis find its educational system and government split among racial lines?  Is help slower to Navajo and Hispanic homeless in New Mexico?  Are gay and lesbian couples being denied the basic rights that we assign to all human beings in the United States of America?

Destroy, let go, and forget your idea of what an American is – that old definition does not exist any more. Every problem we encountered on our drive was a human problem or issue. Every triumph and every solution we encountered was a human triumph.  Not black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, old, young — just human, really.

It has gotten a lot harder for me to go on with the pretend game we play in the United States called “liberty and justice for all”.

We are One Nation, let’s start acting like one. If not for ourselves than for the memory of a great man who once told us: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

We are so close and so far.